How Are Stamps Made?
Last year, 12 billion postage stamps were sold to customers across the United States. These billions of stamps bear a wide variety of images, ranging from seashells and coastal birds to Jimi Hendrix and Wonder Woman. Ever wonder how images are selected for use on postage stamps? Ever hope that your art could appear someday on a postage stamp?
Sending in a Proposal
The first thing to know is that stamp proposals are reviewed in confidential meetings by the Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee (CSAC). Appointed by the Postmaster General, members of the committee include authors, designers, historians, and philatelists. The good news is that the CSAC is open to suggestions! A general guideline is that potential subjects should reflect, commemorate and celebrate the American experience—think monuments like the Gateway Arch in St. Louis or subjects like the 1969 Dodge Charger Daytona.
Proposals must be mailed in and are ultimately approved by the Postmaster General. Need further steps on how to send in a proposal? Check this out: https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/csac/process.htm
If you’re a professional designer, artist, illustrator or photographer, and want to work with the Stamp Development Team design staff, this link may interest you: https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/csac/artwork.htm. The design staff accepts portfolios of your professional work, but do not send an actual stamp design proposal.
Custom Stamps
The review process for approving new USPS postage stamps is thorough, so if your idea or artwork is approved, it can take a few years to see it on a USPS postage stamp.
Don’t want to wait that long? Stamps.com offers two products that may interest you! With Custom NetStamps, you can add your image or artwork to them and add postage of various denominations, either all at once or on demand, by feeding them through your printer. Custom NetStamps combine the flexibility and functionality of our popular NetStamps product.
Our PhotoStamps are our personalized postage product. They are shipped to you with the postage already printed on them, so all you have to do is peel and stick! They are great for special occasions such as weddings or holidays, and make great gifts.
For further information on Custom NetStamps and PhotoStamps, check out this link:
https://stamps.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/409/kw/Custom%20NetStamps